Italy’s national flag carrier, which was reborn as ITA Airways in October 2021 following the collapse of the iconic but chronically mismanaged Alitalia brand, has admitted that it has more pressing issues to deal with than resurrecting its old name.
ITA Airways was created in a clever deal between the Italian government and the European Union to wipe the airline’s debts clean and start afresh, albeit with Alitalia’s old airplanes and staff.
The deal was necessary to circumvent the EU’s strict laws that prohibited Rome from pumping more taxpayers’ money into the state-owned carrier to keep it afloat, although the airline retained the rights to the Alitalia brand at a cost of more than €90 million.
It was widely believed that ITA Airways (Full name: Italia Trasporto Aereo) would one day resurrect the Alitalia name and logo, despite spending a lot of cash creating a brand new image with expensive aircraft liveries and a luxe designer cabin design.
That plan was partly borne out in late 2024, when ITA Airways partially resurrected Alitalia by slapping its logo on the side of its planes with the tagline: Inspired by Alitalia.
Since then, however, ITA Airways has been partially privatized with the Lufthansa Group currently holding a 41% stake in the airline, but with plans to raise that stake to around 90% by the end of this year.
Lufthansa has big ambitions for ITA Airways, but those plans hinge on the Italian flag carrier becoming profitable… You have to wonder then whether an expensive rebranding exercise is the best use of limited resources.
Wonder no more, as ITA Airways chief executive Jörg Eberhart (who previously headed the Lufthansa Group’s Italian regional subsidiary Air Dolomiti) has told Aviation Week that the airline plans to stick with the ITA Airways brand.
Despite ITA Airways focusing on building its own brand image, the airline has no intention of letting anyone else use the Alitalia brand, or even anything resembling it.
In 2023, the airline sued a regional Italian airline known as Aeroitalia because it was alleged that the name and logo were too similar to those of the defunct Alitalia.
The airline was formed after Alitalia’s collapse and features a stylized ‘A’ logo in Italy’s tricolor.
ITA Airways demanded that Aeroitalia immediately changed it name and logo, as well as pay it damages for infringing on the Alitalia brand, which it still owns the rights to.
Given Italy’s lengthy legal process, however, Aeroitalia is still known as Aeroitalia and retains the same logo and livery.
